FOR INK

I have never been blessed with a good set of legs. Well not for a man anyway. My legs are long and quite skinny, my girlfriend says that i would have good legs for a girl. However for a man, not so much.

I shared with you my calf tattoo The Three Stages of Bill Murray. I also posted the 10 killer calf tattoos, judging by your response, you can't get enough of leg tattoos either.

So here are a 10 awesome examples of leg tattoos that i have found on Instagram. These bits of artwork are amazing. Sadly no-on has yet mastered the tattoo art of making feminine legs more masculine.

Well whadya know. I didn't expect to see you around here so soon. If you are a returning reader, welcome back, if you are a new reader then welcome for the first time. Today i am going to be writing about the perils of cleaning your new tattoo at work. How i do it and some hints and tips. Note that this is my personal experience and you should consult your artist for their recommendations of tattoo aftercare.

So if you read the last tattoo post you will know that recently i have had another tattoo. Its a bit crusty at the moment so i will be revealing the finished article as soon as i can get a decent picture of it. All i will say is that my artist the leisure bandit has absolutely killed it and i can't wait to share the final piece.

Look After your New Tattoo and Listen to your Artists Recomendations

Anyway the method i use for my tattoo aftercare is as follows:

Directly following the tattoo the artist will clean and wrap the tattoo with a food grade clingfilm, depending on the area he may use surgical tape to prevent the clingfilm from riding up and revealing the tattoo to the elements. After all the tattoo is a wound and the clingfilm will prevent infection in the initial stages.

When home i leave the clingfilm on for at least 4 hours. So normally just before bed I will remove the initial wrap (i challenge anyone to resist having a sniff, i don't know why, but you do). Clean the tattoo with an antibacterial soap (unscented and without any additives or chemicals, i use a sensitive soap from Simple). Gently wash the tattoo and then carefully pat dry with a decent quality kitchen towel. Wrap the tattoo in clingfilm and get yourself some shut eye. I normally sleep in a sleeping bag to prevent any leakage onto bed sheets.

The next morning repeat and re-wrap. Now following my first tattoo my artist recommended to clean and re-wrap the tattoo for 24 hours after the tattoo. I've seen other people not follow this, i get a lot of colour in my ink, the colours have stayed vibrant from my first tattoo so i'm more than happy to continue this one. However say you get a tattoo on a weekday, How do your follow these instructions at work? Read on my friend, read on.

The Accessable WC is your Friend

I work in an office building as a Civil Engineer, and although tattoos are much more common place these days, i still don't wan't people knowing that i have a new tattoo. It may be uncomfortable to be wrapped up under a shirt or trousers but grin and bear it. The time comes where you need to change your bandage, your boss sits next to you, then gents loo is obviously not the cleanest place. Make the accessible WC/Shower your port of call. At least here you are able to take your shirt or trousers off and not have the risk of someone walking in on you crouched over the sink splashing water on your nether regions. Just be careful to not pull the wrong chord ala Roy on the IT Crowd (incidentally the IT crowd is 10 years old, and my word it still makes me laugh).

I take the antibacterial soap in sandwich bag, and kitchen towel with the clingfilm tube in the centre of it. When the time comes to nip into the Accessible loo, i pop the roll up my sleeve and away i go. There is normally a sanitary bin in the disabled where you can pop the dirty clingfilm (again in the gents you have to carry this out the bin).

In my opinion the benefits of this are:

Cleaner

Privacy. Your boss walking in to see your superman pants and that new tattoo of a pokemon on your ass does not scream professionalism.

Less likely for someone to be waiting outside the door.

Easy disposal of dirty cling film.

So how would you clean your tattoo at work? Is it not as frowned upon in this day and age?

I promise the next tattoo blog will reveal my tattoo - The Three Stages of Bill Murray. Have a read of a previous post to take a sneak peak.

10.15 It has begun, luckily for a calf tattoo, Brodie's chair has a head hole for comfort.

11.02 I'm in the sweet spot at the moment, muscle is relaxe and ink is working well. It's a bizarre feeling at this stage where it is almost relaxing. In fact I have had a little nap. past experience tells me that this moment will not last.

It's a stinger

11.04 it's a terrifying level of trust required to trust someone to get it right. As I look at the floor, and feel the ink and artwork going into the back of my leg I am scared that "what if it's wrong? What if it's shit? What if I don't like it? All natural thoughts and worries. Just relax.

11.24 I love tattoo artist conversations, natural flowing convo starts somehow about Lemmy and naturally finds its way to discussing high jackmans wife. Tattoo update, some areas starting to sting a bit as a result of shading of Bill Murrays skin. I'm now at the awkward stage of needing a piss but not wanting to stop. Gonna hold out as long as I can.

a sneak peek

11.50 artist called away by colleague to consult on another tat, time to take a sneaky look. Looks ace. Although I thought it had felt like more progress than that. At this stage I'd be surprised if we get it all done in this session. Also a little scared that the most painful bits are still to come.

11.53 Getting peckish. Wish I had brought some sweets.

11.55 it's 39 degrees outside, not looking forward to being wrapped in cling film at all. Fuck he has started on a saw bit.

1.34 we have got going again but my skin is like sponge and I'm sweating my tits off. Getting a little bit sore with a lot of tattooing to go.

aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrghhhhhh

3.16 still going, but really feeling it now. Gonna be a slog to the finish. It's weird how my nerves are a bit confused as sometimes I think Brodie has been working on one area but when I look it has actually been somewhere else.

3.37 fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkkkk

4.00 Called it a day, made some great progress but didn't quite get it finished, so guess what if you want to see the finished tat, you'll have to check back into the blog in a few weeks. There is also gonna be a new line of tees coming soon and will launch to coincide with my tat.

Yo, how ya doin? I'm fine thanks for asking. I'ts currently 9.45am and I'm sat in lost city tattoo in spearwood waiting to get my latest tattoo finished (soz mum). Today is a day off of real life, holiday in at work and a day dedicated to me. If you have any tats you'll understand that.

i did get up and try to go for a nice breaky to prepare, however it was closed, so I ended up getting a dirty maccers mcmuffin meal. I haven't been in macdonalds for ages, when the hell did it turn into Argos, the theatre of the poor. If you weren't guilty enough for ordering barely real food, you now have to sit next to a collection of sorry souls and wait for them to call out your number! Anyway at least I got something in my belly.

Now I've had my pregame dump (also thanks to maccas for that) and am sitting in the waiting room waiting for the Leisure Bandit, (Insta Here) this guys work is insane mix of comedy, colour, class line work and just fun tattoos. As I sit here the adrenaline is starting to pump and the excitement is raising.

I'm gonna write this blog and then post as we go, so I have no idea how it will turn out, will probably need some re-edits and jazzing up with pics.

Firsty you may have read my previous blogs about my first tattoo, the pic n mix apocalypse. If not swing by there and have a read. This time I went for a different approach, I searched for hours, mostly Instagram to find an artist who had the qualities I wanted: Fun, colour, originality, comedy, pop culture referencing. Once I found Brodie aka The leisure bandit, which actually came from a recommendation from a barber (after seeing my first tattoo he thought I'd dig his style) I also went to a tattoo convention to meet him and watch him work. As mentioned in my previous post, do your homework and make sure the artist is right for you. Unlike with Low, where I us done much of the design myself, this time I decided to let The Leisure Bandit work from a detailed brief. I initially contacted him to see if he would be interested and if he was into the idea. As for the idea, below is the actually first bit of correspondence I sent him. Instantly he was in to it.

So over the few weeks to follow I pieced together some reference material, went in for a consultation, discussed sizing colour, feel, position, and timing. The only price thing was to ask what his rate was and a rough estimate of how long he thought it would take. Do not haggle for a tattoo, it's ridiculous, it's art. Work out what you want and who you want to do it and be prepared to pay for it.

Anyway here is the original sketch he came back with, it's insane. Perfect level of detail and fun that I was after. I love it.

So I had an initial 6 hour ish stint to do the line work. The top of calf killed, you know the place behind you knee cap, no idea what it's called so I am gonna say knee pit.

So I'm gonna pause this here and then do a part two as I'm just gonna go into get the next bit done.

Welcome to part two of my blog regarding my first tattoo. In Part One i discussed the initial idea, selection of artist and progression to finalising a concept. In this part i'm going to give you an insight into the actual tattoo process and show you a few snapshots of progression to the final piece. I hope you like it.